Fate Up Against Your Will
by trickmirror
Summary: AU set after 2x07- What happens after Ethan and Vanessa's argument at the end of "Little Scorpion"? Another argument perhaps? Angst, then fluff, and maybe some smut down the road.
1. The Argument

AU set after the events of 2x07 b/c i was just desperate to know what happened after their argument. be warned- this is my first fic and it's almost completely unedited so tread carefully, and if you see any mistakes- don't hesitate to let me know! thanks! title comes from the echo and the bunnymen song "the killing moon" which is so vanessa x ethan i can't even stand it.

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"Welcome to the night, Vanessa," he said in a voice filled with acid. Ethan stared at her for a long moment before turning himself away from her and letting out a long sigh, staring into the dying fire.

She just stood there, stunned at the cruel words he had spoken. She knew he would be angry- she had anticipated that.

But now he seemed utterly done with her. That was more frightening than any of the rage she had had in mind.

Would he leave her now? Go back to London alone, maybe even all the way back to America? The thought unsettled her deeply.

She knew she wouldn't be able to fight the devil off without him. But she also knew it was more than that.

She truly depended on his kindness and his courage to survive. If her actions tonight drove him away, she would more than never forgive herself- she would not be able to live.

To be so dependent on another person like this was strange and terrifying, but she wouldn't trade Ethan for anything.

She would have to try to fix this space between them.

Vanessa waited a moment, and then tentatively placed a trembling hand on Ethan's right shoulder. He shrugged it off and turned his back to her.

This was going to be hard, she knew, but they had no other choice. To live without his quiet strength would be unthinkable.

"Ethan," she murmured in a shaky voice. But he just grunted and strode across the room to the couch, sitting down with more force than necessary.

Vanessa turned to look at him. He was leaning forwards, elbows on his knees, scowling at the candles in the fireplace.

She made a move to walk towards him, but his voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Forget it, Vanessa. There's nothing you can say to me that will make things right. I just-" He shook his head sadly and rubbed his face with his palms.

"What you did was absolutely irrevocable. There is no going back from this, Vanessa. You have to understand that. Killing- it stays with you. You've done exactly what the devil wants you to do. I'm just afraid that you can't be saved."

There was a pregnant pause.

"I know that, Ethan, but I was damned from the start," she replied. He gave her an exasperated look. "You were never damned, Vanessa. Only you believed that."

She gave him a look filled with venom.

"I know who I am, Mr. Chandler. I have always been cursed." "And I know who you are, Ms. Ives," he spat back.

There was a moment of heavy silence between them before Ethan spoke again.

"I know who you are, Vanessa. Now more than ever." He got up from his perch on the couch and began to walk in the direction of the door.

"Please don't leave," she said in a small voice. He turned around to look at her. Suddenly he was moving towards her in long strides, a feral look in his eyes.

His rough hands grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look into his wild eyes. "I will never leave you," He said fiercely. "Not now, not ever."

Vanessa turned her head away. "Look at me," he growled, grasping her chin once again.

"Don't think for a second that I am not furious with you and how you threw away your soul so cheaply. Don't think that what you did doesn't change things, Vanessa. It has and it will. You have turned away from your God, just as I have turned away from mine."

She cast her eyes downwards for a moment and then returned his intense gaze. He continued.

"But, I need you to know that some things have not changed. I will still stand by your side until I draw my last breath. I will still do everything in my power to protect you from the unspeakable evil you are facing. These things will never change, no matter what you do."

The relief in her eyes was so palpable he almost kissed her right there and then.

But now was not the time for that.

He was still enraged with what she had done to herself and would not calm down so that didn't mean that he didn't still care for her.

And so, he released her trembling chin and held her tightly in a rough embrace. After overcoming the initial shock, she gingerly wrapped her arms around his waist in return.

Ethan rested his chin against the top of her head. "I just didn't want you to make the same mistakes that I have," he mumbled into her hair.

"I didn't want you to do something so… so life-altering without fully thinking about the consequences," he added. Vanessa stiffened in his arms.

"And if I did think about the consequences?" she retorted, feeling a little defiant in the face of his sudden, all-knowing concern.

At her words, Ethan withdrew his chin from its perch upon her head and lifted hers up to look at him. "Then, maybe you can't be saved," he replied sadly.

Vanessa's gaze faltered. "But that doesn't mean I won't die trying. Before this night, I saw you through a screen, seeing only your goodness and your light, and not as much your potential for darkness. You are changed now, Vanessa, you must carry this darkness with you always. I wish I could have saved you from that burden, but I was too late..."

Vanessa interrupted him."No, that was my choice to make. I have always carried this darkness with me. I have always felt the chill of death down my back. Maybe I am becoming who I truly am."

"Don't say that!" he retorted sharply. "I have seen you and this is not who you are. You may be a woman with great depths, who struggles with the light and the dark, but the darkness is not all you are. You are so much more than that. You may be a creature of the night now, but do not forget your capacity for goodness and light. I have seen you, Vanessa, and that is not all you are."

"And what do you you see now?" she asked in a quiet voice. Ethan was quick to reply. "I see a creature, feral and alive, who has been backed into a corner and is fighting back, but perhaps at the wrong enemy. I see… I see myself in you Vanessa, and that is never something I wanted to say."

At this, Vanessa pulled away from him a little bit to better look into his eyes. "And what is the matter with becoming more like you, Mr. Chandler? To be strong and brave and able to protect those you… you… care about?" Her voice faltered on those last words, unable to yet voice her true feelings, not at a time like this, when he was so angry with her.

"But what you did was neither strong nor brave. It was cruel and goddamn spiteful. You didn't kill him to protect anyone, you just killed him to get revenge."

He extricated himself from her arms and started pacing the room. "I am not the man you think I am, Vanessa. I am not this noble knight of fucking yore come to rescue you and be chivalrous." His accent got thicker the more upset he became. "I am your colleague and your friend and I have flaws. All those men, women, and children whose deaths I am responsible for… that's a pretty big fucking flaw, I'd say. I never wanted you to end up as burdened as me, as dark as me."

He took a deep breath and continued. "I was afraid that your actions, this murder, would divide us. But now I know, now I know that it has only tied us closer together. We are closer now, closer than we have ever been- our mutual darkness unites us."

There was anger burning behind his eyes again, and that ignited something in Vanessa. "Can't you see? You are not the monster- I am!" she growled as she tore past him towards the staircase.

"I never wanted this, Vanessa," he said unhappily as she stormed up the stairs to the loft. When she had made it to the top, one thing stopped her dead.

The Verbis Diablo was still lying open on the floor, as if no time had passed at all. She let out a roar and gave the infernal tome a heavy kick before collapsing onto the floor in tears.

Downstairs, Ethan sat back down on the couch, rubbing his face with his hands and staring morosely into the embers of the fire.

ooo

i started writing this piece after 2x08, due to my frustration with there being no Ethan and no Vanessa whatsoever in that episode. i was dying to know what happened next after Little Scorpion, and wrote this to figure it all out and to sort of quench my own need for resolution. i might also continue this as a fully fledged AU fic if I am dissatisfied with the events of the upcoming episodes lol, so stay tuned.


	2. Kiss & Make-Up

ok so this is a year late… sorry… i got mad at how the season ended and was too disheartened to properly continue. but! i did write this scene before that i know that there's no transition between last chapter and this update... but, every couple of months i get a message asking if i'll ever continue the fic and i feel bad so i'm just gonna throw this old thing down and hope that you all forgive me… lol sorry…

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It was already afternoon when Vanessa descended the stairs from the loft and into the kitchen. She had a curious look on her face, and Ethan was afraid to know what it was. Was she still upset from the night before? God knows he'd calmed down from his rage that evening after several hours of pacing and two long walks in the woods. But Vanessa was a different creature than he, and while his anger cooled within several hours, hers was a poison that lingered much longer. He was sitting at the kitchen table when she stood in front of him and began to speak with an air of calculated confidence.

"I've been thinking, Ethan, and I've come to this conclusion. While I may not regret my actions, I do regret how they've affected you. And I just wanted to say… I'm sorry- for hurting you. Can you still respect me now that I've done this terrible thing?" This last sentence she asked him in an unsure, almost gravelly voice. " ... I never stopped, Vanessa." He said with a kind look in his eyes. He pushed his chair out from the kitchen table and rose to stand in front of her. He took her hands in his own.

"You once told me that no matter what I had done, no matter what, that you would accept me. I was wrong to not do the same for you. I overreacted because I never wanted you to become like me. But you've made your own decisions, you've had to protect yourself and I can now respect your choice instead of condemning it. Can you forgive me for how deplorably I behaved last night? I was rude and condescending and I hope it won't come between us. I was just greatly disappointed in you, and in my anger I said some things that I now regret. You aren't a little girl, we both know that. Maybe you didn't fully comprehend the depth of your actions that night, but it wasn't my place to talk to you like that." His eyes were pleading.

"I don't know about that… Ethan. I did act like a child, in anger and in retribution I acted hastily, and now there's no coming back. There is no coming back from that moment when I opened that book and spoke the word of the devil aloud. That is my cross to bear now," She said sadly. He looked into her eyes with such a kindness that it almost made her heart break."But you dont have to bear it alone," he whispered to her and stroked the back of her hand with the rough pad of his thumb.

A look passed between them then, one of love and understanding and the sharing of a mutual burden. Vanessa gave him a small smile.Ethan gave her one in return, and they stood there for a moment, just happy that they had reached some middle ground.

" I have one more request, Mr. Chandler, if you don't mind." She added in a soft voice. "What is it, Vanessa?" he asked, genuinely curious. "This may sound foolish, but I would really rather not be alone tonight... would you mind, er, sharing the bed with me?" There was a short pause before he replied with a soft smile, "Anything you need, Vanessa, you know that". She smiled back at him, and this time, it reached her eyes.

There was a single moment where they just stood there, smiling goofily at one another before she cleared her throat rather loudly and croaked, "Well, er, shall we?" with a nod to the loft upstairs. Ethan smiled again at her awkward invitation and slowly followed her up the stairs. The quarters in the rickety old loft were tight, and Ethan had to duck his head as he passed the large ornate crucifix dangling heavily from the ceiling.

He had never been up here before, he thought. It was a room rather much like the rest of the cottage, only with high peaked ceilings and more windows. The old twin-sized bed in the middle of the room took up much of the small space. Vanessa had her back to him now, as she quietly slipped off her robe in the corner of the room. He looked away in modesty, and when his eyes finally returned to her, she was standing in front of him in her long white nightdress. It was a sight he had seen a hundred times before, here and at Grandage Place. But now, with the knowledge that she would be so very close to him in that small, small bed, his heart started to race and his palms began to sweat.

Having her so near was treacherous. He had to be on his best behavior, had to control himself, but after the kiss they had shared the night of the lightning storm, all he could think about was touching her. "We are dangerous," she had said to him that night, and maybe she was right. He knew that he was dangerous, all of his actions to date had pointed to that- all the blood and the murders and the beast he changed into at night. And he knew that she could be dangerous, too. Just the night before she had murdered a man in cold blood right in front of him. But together? Maybe they could be something different, something better than themselves. At least, that's what he hoped as he soundlessly removed his suspenders and shoes and looked over at the strange woman that he might already love.

She was in bed now, dark hair spilled out over the pillowcase and over her shoulders, blue eyes gleaming in the soft candlelight. It was very late now, they had been up half the night arguing, and then talking, and Ethan was dead tired. He tried to pull himself together a little bit before gently crawling into bed beside her, being careful not to disturb her as he shifted his weight onto the straw mattress. When he had finally settled in, she turned over and looked in his eyes.

He looked back at her, blood pounding in his ears, heart stuck in his throat. Their foreheads were close, almost touching, and that nearness made his stomach flip. "There was something I wanted to tell you," she said in a low voice. The earnest look in her eyes made his stomach do another little jump as he replied "Yes?" with all the composure he had. "I just wanted to thank you," she said quietly, "For staying," she added. "Vanessa, you know I would never leave you. As long as you need me, I will never leave your side. I promise you that." He whispered ardently.

To make his point clearer, he took her hand in his own and gave it a gentle squeeze. Vanessa closed her eyes for a moment and smiled softly, looking down at their entwined hands and returned his squeeze with one of her own. With his other hand, he lightly raised her chin up to look up at him eyes met with an intense gaze, and Ethan found himself lifting his head up to kiss her on her forehead. There, he lingered just a little too long, her pale skin warm on his lips. When he met her eyes again, he gave a little smile, which she returned, and whispered "Goodnight, Vanessa," his dark eyes never leaving hers. "Goodnight Ethan," she whispered back, and tenderly pressed their foreheads together. Ethan felt the most content he had in a long while.

In the realm between waking and sleeping her heard her speak again. "I'm afraid I will destroy you," she whispered into his hair. It took a moment to register her words, and it was a while before he spoke. "I'm scared too, Vanessa," he murmured back softly to her, placing another delicate kiss on her cheek. They lay there together in the darkness, secrets locked up tighter than their hearts. He let out a long sigh and was asleep in minutes.

When he awoke the next morning, sun shining through the slats in the ceiling, the candles had all sputtered out. Vanessa was still asleep, their hands intertwined between their two bodies. Though awake, he didn't dare move, for fear of waking the sleeping woman beside him. Instead, he contented himself with watching the rise and fall of her breath. A lock of dark hair had settled on her lips and swayed with each breath she took. The sight of it made Ethan give a little snort laugh. The sudden noise caused Vanessa's eyes to flutter open, and slowly, her sleepy gaze met his.

"Good morning," she murmured, her voice husky with sleep. He just grinned at her and squeezed her hand a little tighter. "How did you sleep?" she asked him. "Better than I have in a long, long time," he confessed and she looked down at their hands as the slightest hint of a blush crossed her pallid cheeks.

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hah hah… ok sorry… i'm gonna go binge watch season 3 now…


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